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Domestic Frontiers: Gender, Reform, and American Interventions in the Ottoman Balkans and the Near East, Journal of American History, Volume 100, Issue 4, March 2014, Pages 1209–1210, https://doi.org/10.1093/jahist/jau050
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The history of women in foreign missions can no longer be considered a neglected topic, but questions remain as to whether it is worth celebrating. Barbara Reeves-Ellington does full justice to the complexities of women's involvement in missions, while also highlighting positive contributions. Examining a single mission field over an extended period, Domestic Frontiers adds depth and richness to our understanding of the issues. Her compelling thesis holds that the “language of domesticity was an enduring yet extremely flexible device” with “inherent contradictions” that allowed both female missionaries and indigenous agents to shape it to their own purposes (pp. 2, 10).
The book covers the work of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions from the time it began operations in Constantinople in 1831 until 1908, when the American College for Girls (originally the Constantinople Home) severed its connection to the Congregationalist Woman's Board of Missions. The heart of the book focuses on the European Turkey Mission, which the American Board established as a separate mission in 1871 to concentrate on outreach to Bulgarian Orthodox Christians.